Hi All, Fedora Core 1 came out with 3 iso installation images. Has the size of the Fedora Core 2 release been determined yet?
I would like to see more of an emphasis on the "Core" part of the project, it would be nice if Fedora Core 2 could be released with just 1 or 2 installation CD images.
The idea being to put most of the development effort into producing a robust "Core" and moving the extra stuff elsewhere (Extras CD, fedora.us, etc).
Any interest in producing a live CD version a la Knoppix?
Regards, Maurice Piller
Maurice F. Piller wrote:
Hi All, Fedora Core 1 came out with 3 iso installation images. Has the size
of the
Fedora Core 2 release been determined yet? I would like to see more of an emphasis on the "Core" part of the
project, it
would be nice if Fedora Core 2 could be released with just 1 or 2
installation
CD images.
There was talking of trimming the fat a while back. I'm not sure how feasible it would be, but consider this another voice asking to minimize the size. Two CDs instead of three would be a big improvement in convenience.
Steven Garrity
I think that it's not so much the size of the distribution (the more software that is 'distribution certified' [included] the better, right?), but the way that software is arranged on the disc images. It would be nice to see the base system, kernel, X and gnome on the first disc, with KDE, OpenOffice etc on disc 2, other software on disc 3.
This would eliminate a common problem I've had where I select my install options, and I have to download and burn the whole third disc ISO just so anaconda can fetch a single RPM from that disc. Very annoying, and a waste of bandwidth :-/
It would be nice, when Fedora has matured a little (FC3/4?) to see a higher level of support and promotion of the FTP install feature. I know anaconda does support FTP installs, but there is very little in the way of (obvious) documentation of this feature, and from what I've heard and personal experience it is a little flaky. I am an ex-Debian user and I liked the way I could burn a 50mb ISO and run the installer then fetch packages from a local mirror. I know not everyone has DSL access, but a large and growing number of people do, and I think it may soon be time to rethink the ISO distribution model.
I'd really like to hear what everyone thinks about this, it's been bugging me for a while now :-)
--Jon Atkinson
Steven Garrity wrote:
Maurice F. Piller wrote:
Hi All, Fedora Core 1 came out with 3 iso installation images. Has the size
of the
Fedora Core 2 release been determined yet? I would like to see more of an emphasis on the "Core" part of the
project, it
would be nice if Fedora Core 2 could be released with just 1 or 2
installation
CD images.
There was talking of trimming the fat a while back. I'm not sure how feasible it would be, but consider this another voice asking to minimize the size. Two CDs instead of three would be a big improvement in convenience.
Steven Garrity
-- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 06:56:40PM +0000, Jon Atkinson wrote:
I think that it's not so much the size of the distribution (the more software that is 'distribution certified' [included] the better, right?), but the way that software is arranged on the disc images. It would be nice to see the base system, kernel, X and gnome on the first disc, with KDE, OpenOffice etc on disc 2, other software on disc 3.
The way the software is distributed among the CD images is directly related to rpm dependencies and the calculated package install order, so that can't be easily changed in the way you suggest, without major impact on installer etc.
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 06:56:40PM +0000, Jon Atkinson wrote:
I think that it's not so much the size of the distribution (the more software that is 'distribution certified' [included] the better, right?), but the way that software is arranged on the disc images. It would be nice to see the base system, kernel, X and gnome on the first disc, with KDE, OpenOffice etc on disc 2, other software on disc 3.
This would be a good idea.
[snip]
It would be nice, when Fedora has matured a little (FC3/4?) to see a higher level of support and promotion of the FTP install feature. I know anaconda does support FTP installs, but there is very little in the way of (obvious) documentation of this feature, and from what I've heard and personal experience it is a little flaky. I am an ex-Debian user and I liked the way I could burn a 50mb ISO and run the installer then fetch packages from a local mirror. I know not everyone has DSL access, but a large and growing number of people do, and I think it may soon be time to rethink the ISO distribution model.
I'd really like to hear what everyone thinks about this, it's been bugging me for a while now :-)
FWIW:
I've found no inconvenience with the current installation procedure. I just finished upgrading a lab of about 10 machines to FC1; I installed from images on disk. It wasn't messy like a CD installation. Very fast, smooth and painless. I like the fact that I don't need to make any choices. I would prefer to download the whole thing at once rather than having a 2 stage bootstrapping procedure.
Cheers, Arvind
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 06:56:40PM +0000, Jon Atkinson wrote:
It would be nice, when Fedora has matured a little (FC3/4?) to see a higher level of support and promotion of the FTP install feature. I know anaconda does support FTP installs, but there is very little in the way of (obvious) documentation of this feature, and from what I've heard and personal experience it is a little flaky. I am an ex-Debian user and I liked the way I could burn a 50mb ISO and run the installer then fetch packages from a local mirror. I know not everyone has DSL access, but a large and growing number of people do, and I think it may soon be time to rethink the ISO distribution model.
I started using FTP install about 4 years ago for the simple reason that I had a floppy drive and no CD on my Sony Vaio C1XD. I would download the Redhat ISOs to another machine on the network, mount the images and extract everything then do my FTP install from that machine.
I discovered yum with Fedora and my current box was updated from Redhat 9 (FTP install from the Vaio BTW) via "yum upgrade".
With 512/128 aDSL the install took about an hour and a half -> two hours. From memory FTP on the LAN takes about 45 minutes or about the same time as from CD-ROM.
My objective is to upgrade several servers I run currently to Fedora Core, and I will probably use yum. Several machines I administer don't have a CD drive, they were installed over the LAN and I haven't had the need for one.
I would rather see a base system and yum on a USB key rather than an ISO.
My 0.02€
Tony Grant
On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 13:56, Jon Atkinson wrote:
It would be nice, when Fedora has matured a little (FC3/4?) to see a higher level of support and promotion of the FTP install feature. I know anaconda does support FTP installs, but there is very little in the way of (obvious) documentation of this feature, and from what I've heard and personal experience it is a little flaky. I am an ex-Debian user and I liked the way I could burn a 50mb ISO and run the installer then fetch packages from a local mirror. I know not everyone has DSL access, but a large and growing number of people do, and I think it may soon be time to rethink the ISO distribution model.
As of Fedora Core 1, the FTP install should be just as nice as every other install method as you can do graphical FTP installs (assuming a certain minimal amount of RAM so that we can pull the entire second stage down or using the rescue cd image to start your install). As Jef said, there's not much in the way of docs of anything, but I don't see how you can get more prominent mention than having it listed on the install type screen with everything else :)
If you've had specific problems, *please* report them in bugzilla. I am not at all a mind reader and I can't fix things unless they're reported.
As far as future stuff, I think that HTTP is actually far more relevant than HTTP, but since the installer code is virtually identical for the two, that's irrelevant. I'd like to get to where we can have a simple mirror list available and you can get sort of a "choose your mirror" sort of things for where to do your install from, but I'm not sure that's going to happen in the timeframe for FC2. Especially as the time is dwindling for making large installer changes (I tend to try to stop those by the first test release so that sane testing can be achieved)
Cheers,
Jeremy
As far as future stuff, I think that HTTP is actually far more relevant than HTTP, but since the installer code is virtually identical for the two, that's irrelevant.
I think what jeremy meant was: "I think that HTTP is actually far more relevant than FTP, but since the installer code is virtually identical for the two, that's irrelevant"
-sv
Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 13:56, Jon Atkinson wrote:
It would be nice, when Fedora has matured a little (FC3/4?) to see a higher level of support and promotion of the FTP install feature. I know anaconda does support FTP installs, but there is very little in the way of (obvious) documentation of this feature, and from what I've heard and personal experience it is a little flaky. I am an ex-Debian user and I liked the way I could burn a 50mb ISO and run the installer then fetch packages from a local mirror. I know not everyone has DSL access, but a large and growing number of people do, and I think it may soon be time to rethink the ISO distribution model.
I've done the floppy install (series of 4 floppies) of Debian before. I liked the network install, though Debian didn't meet my particular needs. I also downloaded and burned a whole series of CDROMs and it only used the first CD. (A big waste, but a learning experience). I think that their other concept of selecting desired programs that then create your customized installations is a good approach, if dependencies could be met through the selector.
It might serve Fedora to have such a capability, though it sounds like it would be a nightmare to implement successfully.
As far as Fedora's maturity level. I used RH since verson 5.2 (4.2 for some unix learning, but 5.2 for regular usage). I think that Fedora is the best level that I've ever seen it reach. It'll never mature, it is always growing, thus the 3 CDs needed for the later installations.
As of Fedora Core 1, the FTP install should be just as nice as every other install method as you can do graphical FTP installs (assuming a certain minimal amount of RAM so that we can pull the entire second stage down or using the rescue cd image to start your install). As Jef said, there's not much in the way of docs of anything, but I don't see how you can get more prominent mention than having it listed on the install type screen with everything else :)
Instead of the installation option being kind of hidden, it would be nice to see it available as a choice when the first disc booted up. Alternatively, a credit card model with just ftp / http installation starting might be a good idea. I heard mention of a boot.iso, so it must already exist and is or can be offered within the regular directory that contains the usual 6 discs. ( rpms, srpms)
If you've had specific problems, *please* report them in bugzilla. I am not at all a mind reader and I can't fix things unless they're reported.
As far as future stuff, I think that HTTP is actually far more relevant than HTTP, but since the installer code is virtually identical for the two, that's irrelevant. I'd like to get to where we can have a simple mirror list available and you can get sort of a "choose your mirror" sort of things for where to do your install from, but I'm not sure that's going to happen in the timeframe for FC2. Especially as the time is dwindling for making large installer changes (I tend to try to stop those by the first test release so that sane testing can be achieved)
This sounds like a worthwhile enhancement. I'd most likely use these planned enhancements.
As far as the distribution size. I was looking forward to a 4 gig DVD offering. I like the smaller sized programs and find them useful. I also like the more megabyte hungry programs that are currently offered.
Thanks for the hard work set forth so far. I get bored with trying to learn how to program apps, but hope to eventually buckle down and start contributing fixes and such later.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Jim
On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 18:41, Jim Cornette wrote:
Jeremy Katz wrote: I've done the floppy install (series of 4 floppies) of Debian before. I liked the network install, though Debian didn't meet my particular needs. I also downloaded and burned a whole series of CDROMs and it only used the first CD. (A big waste, but a learning experience). I think that their other concept of selecting desired programs that then create your customized installations is a good approach, if dependencies could be met through the selector.
It might serve Fedora to have such a capability, though it sounds like it would be a nightmare to implement successfully.
It's there. If you boot with the floppy image (boot.img + drvnet.img from the images/ directory), then you can do an ftp install with just 2 floppies instead of four :)
Instead of the installation option being kind of hidden, it would be nice to see it available as a choice when the first disc booted up. Alternatively, a credit card model with just ftp / http installation starting might be a good idea. I heard mention of a boot.iso, so it must already exist and is or can be offered within the regular directory that contains the usual 6 discs. ( rpms, srpms)
I don't see how this is hidden... If you boot with regular CDs, then the right thing to do is go ahead and use them because that's what the 99% case is going to want. You can bypass the autocd detection (boot with 'linux askmethod') -- all of this is in the syslinux help screens :/
boot.iso is located in the images/ directory and is an approximately 4 meg image that you can burn to CD and start an install with. Maybe putting it in the isos directory instead of just the tree would help raise the visibility here.
Cheers,
Jeremy
I think therefore it might be a good idea to make this more prominent then. On the download page (http://fedora.redhat.com/download/#boot) the diskette images are mentioned, but maybe a few small changes should be made, to explain to users the _advantages_ of using diskette images. I think the fact this feature and installation method exists should be trumpeted to users as loudly as possible; surely the bandwidth savings (for both redhat.com and its mirrors) would be fairly large. I don't see any disadvantages to this, unless I'm missing something obvious in which case I await correction ;-)
As an aside, does anyone have access to the download statistics for the images? I'd be interested to see a few figures :-)
--Jon Atkinson
Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 18:41, Jim Cornette wrote:
Jeremy Katz wrote: I've done the floppy install (series of 4 floppies) of Debian before. I liked the network install, though Debian didn't meet my particular needs. I also downloaded and burned a whole series of CDROMs and it only used the first CD. (A big waste, but a learning experience). I think that their other concept of selecting desired programs that then create your customized installations is a good approach, if dependencies could be met through the selector.
It might serve Fedora to have such a capability, though it sounds like it would be a nightmare to implement successfully.
It's there. If you boot with the floppy image (boot.img + drvnet.img from the images/ directory), then you can do an ftp install with just 2 floppies instead of four :)
Instead of the installation option being kind of hidden, it would be nice to see it available as a choice when the first disc booted up. Alternatively, a credit card model with just ftp / http installation starting might be a good idea. I heard mention of a boot.iso, so it must already exist and is or can be offered within the regular directory that contains the usual 6 discs. ( rpms, srpms)
I don't see how this is hidden... If you boot with regular CDs, then the right thing to do is go ahead and use them because that's what the 99% case is going to want. You can bypass the autocd detection (boot with 'linux askmethod') -- all of this is in the syslinux help screens :/
boot.iso is located in the images/ directory and is an approximately 4 meg image that you can burn to CD and start an install with. Maybe putting it in the isos directory instead of just the tree would help raise the visibility here.
Cheers,
Jeremy
-- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 18:41, Jim Cornette wrote:
Jeremy Katz wrote: I've done the floppy install (series of 4 floppies) of Debian before. I liked the network install, though Debian didn't meet my particular needs. I also downloaded and burned a whole series of CDROMs and it only used the first CD. (A big waste, but a learning experience). I think that their other concept of selecting desired programs that then create your customized installations is a good approach, if dependencies could be met through the selector.
It might serve Fedora to have such a capability, though it sounds like it would be a nightmare to implement successfully.
It's there. If you boot with the floppy image (boot.img + drvnet.img from the images/ directory), then you can do an ftp install with just 2 floppies instead of four :)
I'll have to try the two floppy and ftp: or http: installation method. Two floppies vs. three ISO images seems minimal install medium to me.
Also, I was wondering about the pick your installation choices before you download the installation pieces. Then grab the needed package groups (modular elements, such as KDE, gnome, sysadmin, games, etc:) and then generating the final ISO images before download. I'm not sure if this concept could be automated from the server side or could be assembled on the client side from some sort of a retriever program.
Instead of the installation option being kind of hidden, it would be nice to see it available as a choice when the first disc booted up. Alternatively, a credit card model with just ftp / http installation starting might be a good idea. I heard mention of a boot.iso, so it must already exist and is or can be offered within the regular directory that contains the usual 6 discs. ( rpms, srpms)
I don't see how this is hidden... If you boot with regular CDs, then the right thing to do is go ahead and use them because that's what the 99% case is going to want. You can bypass the autocd detection (boot with 'linux askmethod') -- all of this is in the syslinux help screens :/ ,
This makes sense to me now, since the CDROMs are at hand. It would be nice though if after the installer found a working hi-speed connection, if it would present a choice for doing a network install or check for errata, which might improve the installation. (Out of disk space, firewire, default up2date retrieval information, etc).
boot.iso is located in the images/ directory and is an approximately 4 meg image that you can burn to CD and start an install with. Maybe putting it in the isos directory instead of just the tree would help raise the visibility here
I downloaded and tried the boot.iso from the rawhide image directory. It detected a NIC presence on both machines that I tried it on. On the machine with dual 3com ethernet cards, it asked which ethernet card that I wanted to use. Neither came with an identity. Is kudzu and hwdata part of the boot.iso?
The other computer that I tried the boot.iso gave me an error code -16. The dual 3com NIC computer gave me the same error -16 also. Both NICs were tried, both gave the same errors.
I would have found the boot.iso faster, with it being located alongside the installation ISOs. I still assumed the images directory was for floppy images , not CDROM images. Live and learn!
Thanks!
Jim
Cheers,
Jeremy
On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 21:48, Jim Cornette wrote:
Also, I was wondering about the pick your installation choices before you download the installation pieces. Then grab the needed package groups (modular elements, such as KDE, gnome, sysadmin, games, etc:) and then generating the final ISO images before download. I'm not sure if this concept could be automated from the server side or could be assembled on the client side from some sort of a retriever program.
There's really not a good, sane way to do this unfortunately.
[snip]
This makes sense to me now, since the CDROMs are at hand. It would be nice though if after the installer found a working hi-speed connection, if it would present a choice for doing a network install or check for errata, which might improve the installation. (Out of disk space, firewire, default up2date retrieval information, etc).
Checking things like this tends to ... annoy people. They think that you're calling home or something :) Also, "high-speed" is a very vague term and hard to determine. Plus, as soon as that's done, people start wanting ISDN and everything else support on boot disks which starts to get out of hand pretty quick for boot disks. As far as updates, they're handled in the firstboot process.
boot.iso is located in the images/ directory and is an approximately 4 meg image that you can burn to CD and start an install with. Maybe putting it in the isos directory instead of just the tree would help raise the visibility here
I downloaded and tried the boot.iso from the rawhide image directory. It detected a NIC presence on both machines that I tried it on. On the machine with dual 3com ethernet cards, it asked which ethernet card that I wanted to use. Neither came with an identity. Is kudzu and hwdata part of the boot.iso?
rawhide is a little busted right now. Now that the holidays are over, I'll get back to tracking down why :)
I would have found the boot.iso faster, with it being located alongside the installation ISOs. I still assumed the images directory was for floppy images , not CDROM images. Live and learn!
Hmm, okay. It's definitely something to consider. The extra 5 megs wouldn't really be a huge concern for mirroring, IMHO, and if it makes things more obvious then it may well be worth it.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Jeremy Katz wrote:
On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 21:48, Jim Cornette wrote:
Also, I was wondering about the pick your installation choices before you download the installation pieces. Then grab the needed package groups (modular elements, such as KDE, gnome, sysadmin, games, etc:) and then generating the final ISO images before download. I'm not sure if this concept could be automated from the server side or could be assembled on the client side from some sort of a retriever program.
There's really not a good, sane way to do this unfortunately.
It sounded like something that would be very hard to implement. It would be great for customizing your installation set though.
[snip]
This makes sense to me now, since the CDROMs are at hand. It would be nice though if after the installer found a working hi-speed connection, if it would present a choice for doing a network install or check for errata, which might improve the installation. (Out of disk space, firewire, default up2date retrieval information, etc).
Checking things like this tends to ... annoy people. They think that you're calling home or something :) Also, "high-speed" is a very vague term and hard to determine. Plus, as soon as that's done, people start wanting ISDN and everything else support on boot disks which starts to get out of hand pretty quick for boot disks. As far as updates, they're handled in the firstboot process.
With all of the different possible machine configurations and post-release problems discovered, it would be nice to get some sort of option to remedy particular problems before installation continues. I do understand that people keep wanting more enhancements and the installer becomes all too complicated to create.
boot.iso is located in the images/ directory and is an approximately 4 meg image that you can burn to CD and start an install with. Maybe putting it in the isos directory instead of just the tree would help raise the visibility here
I downloaded and tried the boot.iso from the rawhide image directory. It detected a NIC presence on both machines that I tried it on. On the machine with dual 3com ethernet cards, it asked which ethernet card that I wanted to use. Neither came with an identity. Is kudzu and hwdata part of the boot.iso?
rawhide is a little busted right now. Now that the holidays are over, I'll get back to tracking down why :)
I just did an ftp install of Rawhide on this machine. I think that mkinitrd is one of the items that need to be corrected. The ftp install of devevelopment went through in about 4 hours time from the download.fedora.redhat.com site and using the /pub/fedora/linux/core/development/i386 directory to retrieve the information. This was a server installation and was a clean install. I haven't booted into it yet to see what it will do. The initrd error caused me a few detours. I installed lilo because I wrecked grub when trying to reinstall it on my drive. I have to configure lilo to boot the newly installed ftp retrieved installation.
On a detour, I installed the rawhide rpms on two different machines as an upgrade. I have found problems with kudzu, python related programs up2date and one or two documentation rpms. The program conflict count is only about 30 programs. Most of the other programs seem to work fine on both machines. If I get the ftp installation booting, I'll see the errors with that machine.
Some excerpts from the install log are included below:
Installing 769 packages <snip> Installing kernel-2.6.0-1.23.i686. WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.0-1.23/unsupported/drivers/video/sis/sisfb.ko needs unknown symbol __floatsidf WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.0-1.23/unsupported/drivers/video/sis/sisfb.ko needs unknown symbol __fixunsdfsi WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.0-1.23/unsupported/drivers/video/sis/sisfb.ko needs unknown symbol __adddf3 WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.0-1.23/unsupported/drivers/video/sis/sisfb.ko needs unknown symbol __divdf3 WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.0-1.23/unsupported/drivers/media/dvb/ttpci/dvb-ttpci.ko needs unknown symbol __floatsidf WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.0-1.23/unsupported/drivers/media/dvb/ttpci/dvb-ttpci.ko needs unknown symbol __ltdf2 WARNING: /lib/modules/2.6.0-1.23/unsupported/drivers/media/dvb/ttpci/dvb-ttpci.ko needs unknown symbol __adddf3
I would have found the boot.iso faster, with it being located alongside the installation ISOs. I still assumed the images directory was for floppy images , not CDROM images. Live and learn!
Hmm, okay. It's definitely something to consider. The extra 5 megs wouldn't really be a huge concern for mirroring, IMHO, and if it makes things more obvious then it may well be worth it.
Thanks,
Jim
Cheers,
Jeremy
On Jan 4, 2004, Jeremy Katz katzj@redhat.com wrote:
I would have found the boot.iso faster, with it being located alongside the installation ISOs. I still assumed the images directory was for floppy images , not CDROM images. Live and learn!
Hmm, okay. It's definitely something to consider.
Ditto for the rescue CD, that is a superset of boot.iso, with a lot of other useful stuff. Since it's already in the exploded tree, a hard link to it in the downloadable ISOs probably wouldn't hurt in terms of disk space and would make it far more visible.
Maurice F. Piller (piller@visi.net) said:
Fedora Core 1 came out with 3 iso installation images. Has the size of the Fedora Core 2 release been determined yet?
No, but it's presumably similar.
I would like to see more of an emphasis on the "Core" part of the project, it would be nice if Fedora Core 2 could be released with just 1 or 2 installation CD images.
Until Fedora Extras really gets going, there's not really *that* much stuff that can be moved out. It's certainly possible to do a 2-CD binary distribution (I've done it), but you're trimming more than just fat. Basically, all the really crufty stuff is also the small stuff.
The easiest way to trim the most space is to remove a desktop, by far. But I don't think that's very practical for Core right now. More people want more desktops rather than less. :)
Bill
I would like to see more of an emphasis on the "Core" part of the project, it would be nice if Fedora Core 2 could be released with just 1 or 2 installation CD images.
Until Fedora Extras really gets going, there's not really *that* much stuff that can be moved out. It's certainly possible to do a 2-CD binary distribution (I've done it), but you're trimming more than just fat. Basically, all the really crufty stuff is also the small stuff.
The easiest way to trim the most space is to remove a desktop, by far. But I don't think that's very practical for Core right now. More people want more desktops rather than less. :)
Is it possible to put all the gnome stuff on 1 cd and all the kde stuff on another and say if you want a gnome only install download cd 1 and cd 2 if you want a kde only install download cd 1 and 3 if you want to mix and match download all three? I'm not sure what the package size split between the two desktops and other generic stuff. Or alternatively have it so a standard install (no selection of packages other than default) or maybe a desktop/woorkstation install only uses the first two disks so that people have the option of a third disk that has all the not so used packages on it such as possibly all the language packs, not used often services such a nis/news/etc
I'm not sure how this would work with such things a dependancies etc for things like dicitionaries etc. It would also be nice to have an option in the installer for languages you want supported on a particular system. Sort of like these are the languages we support which do you want allowing easy removal during the install of things like Canna/FreeWnn/various language dictionaries etc. So you can do a full install just for English/Spanish/Whatever without getting the language stuff for other languages.
Just my thoughts Peter
Peter
Maurice F. Piller wrote:
Fedora Core 1 came out with 3 iso installation images. Has the size of the Fedora Core 2 release been determined yet?
[snip]
A few comments for the discussion:
- As has already been mentioned, enough people want different sets of packages to make it impossible to place packages such that the majority only needs 2 CDs. - There is the issue with package ordering. - Something that hasn't been mentioned: When fedora extras really gets going we're going to have an even bigger problem when it comes to upgrades. Imagine I'm upgrading from Fedora 2 to Fedora 3 and I have many extras packages installed. I download the 2/3 CDs for Fedora *Core*. I start an upgrade... anaconda finds some extras installed that depend on an old version of a package in core which it is about to upgrade. So it removes that extra package. If this happens for many packages it's not good news! Perhaps someone can comment on how likely this scenario is (one would hope that newer packages maintain backwards compatibility, or compat packages are provided... but this is not always the case). - Obviously for an initial install you can just ignore extras and add them later. But as soon as you add them you hit the upgrade problem above. A solution is are mentioned below, but this does not really help users without sufficient internet access speed or capacity. What do we do for these users? Will we need to provide CDs of extras?
Some thoughts on solutions:
- Increased prominence of network based installs/upgrades. This has been mentioned already. This means people don't need to download 2 CDs worth of data to then only use 300Mb from each. - Network installs can also pick up extras repositories (either automatically or allow the user to specify - I would suggest the former). This solves the upgrade problem above. - Change how anaconda works (DANGER WILL ROBINSON ;]) so that there is a base set of packages that gives you a barebones system (there has already been discussion about this), and each CD is more like a repository - ala Debian. Users on poor internet connections can get CDs (off friends/whatever) that contain the majority of packages they use, and use network means to fetch any odd ones from CDs they don't have. So if I have lots of packages from CDs "FC1" and "FC2" and "FE1" (Fedora Extras), but only 10 packages off "FC3" and "FE2" I can have the benefits of CDs for most of what I need, but without having to get a full set of them.
I am not proposing most of this for FC2 (certainly as it seems extras will not be there). However, it is obviously going to need some thinking about. There is a lot more to think about than the above - I only seek to raise awareness that intrusive changes may need to be made, so the sooner it's discussed the better.
If these issues have already been discussed and either dismissed or solutions found, I would be interested to know what's planned!
Cheers
Hello all.
I downloaded FC1 ISOs via bit torrent. Something that took me 3 hours on my ADSL line rather than the 20 or so hours it would have taken me to download the ISOs off a local mirror.
Essentially, using a network install (as mentioned here) would be just as slow as downloading the ISOs from a mirror? Not a pleasant option, even with broadband.
The last time I did a network install was with RH5.2 way back when, on my then cable modem. Not fun - a basic install took all night to run, and I've never touched network installs since (off the Internet. I do network installs off a LAN frequently).
I hardly know anything of the internal workings of Anaconda, but perhaps there is a way to do network installs of bittorrent shares? Now THAT would be interesting!
Cheers, Manik
On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 13:52, Stuart Children wrote:
Maurice F. Piller wrote:
Fedora Core 1 came out with 3 iso installation images. Has the size of the Fedora Core 2 release been determined yet?
[snip]
A few comments for the discussion:
- As has already been mentioned, enough people want different sets of
packages to make it impossible to place packages such that the majority only needs 2 CDs.
- There is the issue with package ordering.
- Something that hasn't been mentioned: When fedora extras really gets
going we're going to have an even bigger problem when it comes to upgrades. Imagine I'm upgrading from Fedora 2 to Fedora 3 and I have many extras packages installed. I download the 2/3 CDs for Fedora *Core*. I start an upgrade... anaconda finds some extras installed that depend on an old version of a package in core which it is about to upgrade. So it removes that extra package. If this happens for many packages it's not good news! Perhaps someone can comment on how likely this scenario is (one would hope that newer packages maintain backwards compatibility, or compat packages are provided... but this is not always the case).
- Obviously for an initial install you can just ignore extras and add
them later. But as soon as you add them you hit the upgrade problem above. A solution is are mentioned below, but this does not really help users without sufficient internet access speed or capacity. What do we do for these users? Will we need to provide CDs of extras?
Some thoughts on solutions:
- Increased prominence of network based installs/upgrades. This has been
mentioned already. This means people don't need to download 2 CDs worth of data to then only use 300Mb from each.
- Network installs can also pick up extras repositories (either
automatically or allow the user to specify - I would suggest the former). This solves the upgrade problem above.
- Change how anaconda works (DANGER WILL ROBINSON ;]) so that there is a
base set of packages that gives you a barebones system (there has already been discussion about this), and each CD is more like a repository - ala Debian. Users on poor internet connections can get CDs (off friends/whatever) that contain the majority of packages they use, and use network means to fetch any odd ones from CDs they don't have. So if I have lots of packages from CDs "FC1" and "FC2" and "FE1" (Fedora Extras), but only 10 packages off "FC3" and "FE2" I can have the benefits of CDs for most of what I need, but without having to get a full set of them.
I am not proposing most of this for FC2 (certainly as it seems extras will not be there). However, it is obviously going to need some thinking about. There is a lot more to think about than the above - I only seek to raise awareness that intrusive changes may need to be made, so the sooner it's discussed the better.
If these issues have already been discussed and either dismissed or solutions found, I would be interested to know what's planned!
Cheers
Essentially, using a network install (as mentioned here) would be just as slow as downloading the ISOs from a mirror? Not a pleasant option, even with broadband.
Not really. You wouldn't download ALL of the packages if you were doing a network install. You'd only install the ones you selected. it is rare that someone installs EVERY SINGLE PACKAGE.
The last time I did a network install was with RH5.2 way back when, on my then cable modem. Not fun - a basic install took all night to run, and I've never touched network installs since (off the Internet. I do network installs off a LAN frequently).
You need to look up better mirrors.
I hardly know anything of the internal workings of Anaconda, but perhaps there is a way to do network installs of bittorrent shares? Now THAT would be interesting!
Extremely hard, in fact. Bittorrent normally hosts only the isos, not each package.
-sv